Intelligence meets Inheritance
by Nina of the Galaxy
Summary: Moira wants Oliver to get into the prestigious "Starling City Preparatory High School" and Oliver couldn't care less. Robert sponsors Laurel's way in so that she can be Oliver's tutor. And this is how fate designed they meet.


Words: 2037  
Genre: Friendship/Humor  
Status: Done. But if you guys like it, sequels.

"Mr. and Mrs. Queen, I'm afraid we can't let Oliver into Starling City Preparatory High without some concrete proof that he'll do better. His grades are abysmal and even if he is a Queen, we can't have that kind of liability on our hands. I'm sure you understand," Dean Van Cruise said. Her voice suggested that there was no argument on this front and Oliver who sat in the middle of his parents couldn't have cared less. Who cared about some stupid Preparatory School.

Moira who was quite intent on getting her son into this school, pursed her lips. Damn. Well, that was a blow, but how to fix it? "Surely, we can come to some arrangement about this. I mean you're the best school in the city and Queens only accept the best. Besides, all of his friends are going to Starling City Prep."

The Dean considered for a moment. "Well, there are a couple of things that we could do," She said. The dollar signs that were sitting in the chairs opposite her were obvious. There was no doubt that she could get them to come to benefits and host fundraisers and pay for uniforms. Almost every parent at Starling City Prep enrolled with a trust fund baby, but the Queens, they were richer than most.

"We will take any options," She said and Robert just flattened his expression. There was no getting around this. It was a good financial investment in Oliver, and hopefully would be one well spent, but he wasn't so hopeful. Still, Moira wanted this and it was clear, she wasn't going to back out because he made a ruckus.

The Dean just smiled, perfection is what she saw. "Well," She said, taking out a file of papers. She opened it and flipped through the pages, licking her fingers occasionally. When she got to the few pages she wanted, she drew them out and closed the file again. "These are our scholarship students. We'd like you to sponsor one of them to get into Starling City Prep, and they would help Oliver improve his grades."

"What would sponsoring one of these kids entail?" Robert asked the Dean.

She bared her teeth. "Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. You pay their bills to come here. We have a lot of students who want to come in on scholarship and you would be providing an additional opportunity for one of these kids who would unfortunately not get in."

"But this would get Oliver into Starling City Prep?" He asked, ruffled by the fact that he would have to pay for two kids to come instead of his one.

She nodded, "Of course. I mean it wouldn't hurt his chances if you bought a table at the next benefit, but I'm sure we can square away those details later."

He grumbled as he pulled out his checkbook and started writing the check, "Moira, pick one of the students and let's get this over with,"

Moira looked through all of them slowly and read what they had to say. They were all equally qualified to come to Starling City Prep and that was the shame. She couldn't provide opportunities to all of them. But she could make one of these kids lives better. And she was going to do that.

She took a longer look at a couple of them, down between a "Lance, Laurel", "James, Elizabeth", "Cooper, Dan" and "Acker, Alex". Despite, all of their qualifications, she thought Elizabeth would clearly be Oliver's type and there would be no work done between them except some anatomy and Oliver already knew that too well. Alex had some attitude problems and money would probably only exacerbate that.

It was down to Lance and Cooper. Moira looked at the Dean and smiled, "Have you met with these two?" She asked.

The Dean looked at the profiles and smiled, "Yes. Laurel's bright and you can tell she's going places. Her father couldn't be at the meeting, but her mother is a professor, so she clearly knows the value of education."

"Meaning she's a pretentious nerd," Oliver muttered, his chin and forearms on the Dean's desk. The Dean, at least, had the good sense to look shocked at this.

Robert Rolled his eyes. "Son, you need to stay quiet while the adults are talking,"

"Whatever,"

"Like I was saying. Lance is happy, confident, bright, and knows the value of Education. Cooper, he's fine. He's smart and sociable, but he just kind of seemed bored with education."

This won Moira over. "Well, we'll sponsor the Lance girl."

"Excellent," The Dean said as she took the check and Laurel's profile back. "If you'd like, I can set up a meeting between you and the Lances to discuss the details."

Moira's lips quirked in the society smile, "I think that would be best,"

"Of course" The Dean replied and went on to making a call the the Lances who seemed overjoyed a the idea that Laurel could go to Starling City Prep, the school that Oliver didn't get and he could just tell that this girl was going to be a pain in his ass. The Dean explained that the Queens had graciously paid Laurel's way in on the condition that Laurel help Oliver.

The whole room went quiet. They weren't sure about that. Laurel was going to be busy doing her own work and she would have to have her classes come first. "Well, why don't we set up a meeting for tonight, with all of us?" The Dean asked the Lances on the phone.

"You are to be nice to this girl Ollie," Robert rumbled to him, trying to keep quiet. "Your mother believes in you and she wants the best for you and this girl is a way to get it. You will be nice to her. And you will make her feel welcome in our home."

"Yes, sir," Oliver said as he waited for this whole thing to be done. Honestly, he just wanted to be wakeboarding with Tommy and hitting on girls right now.

"Well, great. Why don't you meet us at the Queen's residence at about Six? We can all have dinner and talk about how this would work. I'm sure you can see the value of this," The Dean said. And all Oliver could see was someone who wanted their money and didn't do a very good job at concealing it. "Great, that settles it. See you at Six. I'll email you the address when we get off the phone. Bye Mr. Lance,"

She looked so bored as she got off the phone with Mr. Lance. Money. That was the only thing she clearly cared for. And Oliver was her way of getting it out of both the Lance family and Queen family. "So I'll meet you at your residence at six. And so will the Lances." She told them.

Getting out of the meeting, it was a call home to Raisa who whipped up food for the two families and the dean. Not too fancy, but enough that the Lances could tell that they would cared for.

And then of course, it was making sure that everything was perfect so that they wouldn't scare the Lances off. Which meant no secrets tonight. At least with the adults. Everyone would act like everyone else was a perfect angel and they weren't bribing his way into the school and the the Dean didn't care about the money and that the Lance didn't care about how they were perceived. It was all so exhausting.

A little bit before six, the doorbell rang and one of the staff members opened the door, only to find the Dean, dressed a little bit nicer than she was at the Office, but essentially the same. "You have a lovely home," She said. Fake. All fake. But real enough for tonight, because Moira was taking her down the hall gabbing, small talk.

And directly at six, the doorbell rang again and it was the Lance family. A mother. A father. And a daughter. She didn't look like he thought she would look, though admittedly he hadn't been intent on looking at her picture. "Mr. Queen," The father said with a jittery smile.

Oliver found that oddly refreshing. His skittishness around their home was genuine. Maybe, it wouldn't be so hard to like them. Who knew? Maybe this wasn't such a bad deal after all. Sure, it wasn't going to be easy, but at least they clearly weren't in it for the money.

"Why don't we let the kids get to know each other?" Dinah said to Moira.

Moira looked at her son and nodded, "That sounds like a great idea. Oliver, why don't you show Laurel to the Library and you guys talk?" She asked him in that way that was not really a question. It was a demand, but it was polite and he shrugged.

"Whatever," He said as he turned his way to the Library, "Come on."

They got far enough into the hall and she nervously smiled and she was uniquely beautiful when she smiled. "You don't actually have a library do you?"

"Oh, the Queen manor comes stocked with all your pretentious needs." He told her, sort of joking.

She snorted. "So why do you need me?"

"Because you are my ticket into Starling City Prep."

Laurel's eyebrows furrowed together. "I thought you were my ticket in."

That was the thing. They both had value to Starling City Prep and the Dean knew that getting both of them would help her on both fronts that she was actually paid to help. Oliver understood that someone like the Dean didn't actually care at all and this meeting was just about getting all parties to agree, but dammit, she'd done something right.

She'd given them Laurel and dammit, he actually sort of liked her. Especially with how open and genuine she could be. Her face was an open book to him, every little micro expression could be read in full technicolor detail. "Yeah, well, looks like we need each other."

"You're not seriously taking me to that pretentious library are you?" She asked, amused by the whole thing. This house was wonderful and the money would be used, but she cared less about that than she did about the idea that she could get an education. And she could help someone in the process.

He looked to the library and shook his head, "You want to go play some video games?" He asked her and her grin made him grin too. She was going to bring out the best in him.

"Yeah," She agreed and she ran down the hall, probably the first person in a long time to run down the hall, "Which one?" She asked.

He pointed to one and she pushed the door open and sat in front of the tv and looked through the games, already making herself at home. She was something else.

The adults talked for hours about the pros and cons of sponsoring and the details of how this would work out, while Laurel and Oliver sat and played video games.

After being beat for the fifth time at a racing game that he was the best at, Oliver declared, "You're cheating. I don't know how, but you are definitely cheating. You are so cheating it's not even funny," He said it with a smile on his face, so it wasn't too serious.

"Ah, well, you just don't like getting beat by a girl. Which is fine. But Queen you're gonna have to do better than you're cheating. Especially when you're so phenomenally bad at it."

"Bad?" He asked with a laugh. "I'm the best at this game."

She shook her head. "Obviously not anymore."

He couldn't believe her. She was confident but not pretentious. She was smart and skilled, but not arrogant. "Well, that just means, I'll have a lot to learn from you," He said.

"In school and out of it." She smirked. "I'm gonna say yes to the sponsoring."

"Yeah?" He asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. It'd be stupid to waste the opportunity to school you even more."

"You're on."


End file.
